The formulation of food products must meet economic, ecological and public health considerations while guaranteeing microbiological and organoleptic quality. A thorough understanding of the substances and the alternatives used (functional properties; health, environmental, and economic impacts) is essential for food industry professionals to design more “optimised” formulations and, for public authorities, in order to regulate food industry companies’ practices as effectively as possible.

RMT Actia Juste formulation provides an operational response to these challenges:
- Acquiring reliable and comparable experimental data through collaborative research programmes.
- Arming professionals with the knowledge to make clear, responsible, and acceptable formulation decisions.

This RMT began its work in 2026 and is set to run for five years.

Workstream 1: Monitoring to identify and qualify substances and their related risk level: Implementation of a strategic monitoring methodology to identify inputs that need research, in order to prioritise which substances to research. Evaluation of the contribution of artificial intelligence in screening and updating the information collected.

Workstream 2: Detailed characterisation of substances and their alternatives (composition, functions): Creation of standardised characterisation methods for each category of substance, to complement the monitoring data, to inventory and compare alternatives to the benchmark substances, and to select applications to be tested in real conditions in workstream 3.

Workstream 3: Approving the suitability of alternatives in model applications in order to help with the reformulation of products: Testing the alternatives identified during the previous workstreams in representative food matrices, to facilitate decision-making and test the methodology used in the previous phases.

Workstream 4: Dissemination of results and tools: Development of tools to transfer the knowledge and methodology to the professional and academic fields.